Alice+Koester


 * SUMMARY: Alice Koester died on March 5, 1900 after an abortion attributed to a Chicago woman whose profession was not noted. **

On March 5, 1900, Mrs. Alice Koester died in German Hospital from complications of an illegal abortion that the Homicide in Chicago Interactive Database indicates was performed there that day by Maria Janke. The database is often in error about abortions being perpetrated in hospitals. Alice's fatal abortion was more likely performed either at her own home or at wherever Janke typically piled her abortion trade.

Janke was arrested March 10, and held by Coroner's Jury on March 11. She was sentenced by Judge Clifford to Joliet Penitentiary for a charge not noted in the source. Janke's employment status is listed as "professional", but so far I have been unable to determine her usual profession. Most Chicago abortionists were doctors or midwives, but since I have not found a professional listing for her, she was more likely a professional lay abortionist.

Note, please, that with overall public health issues such as doctors not using proper aseptic techniques, lack of access to blood transfusions and antibiotics, and overall poor health to begin with, there was likely little difference between the performance of a legal abortion and illegal practice, and the aftercare for either type of abortion was probably equally unlikely to do the woman much, if any, good. For more about abortion and abortion deaths in the first years of the 20th century, see [|Abortion Deaths 1900-1909].

For more on pre-legalization abortion, see [|The Bad Old Days of Abortion]

Sources:
 * [|Homicide in Chicago Interactive]

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